So Wrong It's Right - In The Press

Charlie Brooker returns to BBC Radio 4 with a new series of So Wrong It's Right. Here he talks about some of his own 'worst' things.

Written by Morgan Jeffery. Digital Spy, 16th May 2012

A welcome return for the panel show hosted by Charlie Brooker that looks for the worst in everything and spins it into comedy gold. For example - your ideas, please, for the most appalling concept album? I'll leave you to insert your own ideas there and introduce the panellists: reliable Lee Mack; rising Scottish comic Susan Calman (a News Quiz regular); and the "who he?", Daniel Maier (answer: a writer on Harry Hill's TV Burp, so no slouch when it comes to gags).

As many listening to this reversal-of-convention panel game will loathe chairman Charlie Brooker as love his iconoclasm. Not every show is going to meet with universal approval. Yet radio does so much comedy that people tend to forget Alan Partridge was born here and Whose Line Is It Anyway? blazed a trail all the way to the USA.

More standups in the return of Charlie Brooker's So Wrong It's Right show on Thursday on Radio 4. This is a strange show. Brooker is a scurrilously witty man, but his humour, like David Mitchell's, lies in his anger. There is no anger in this programme. And although it purports to be about failure - asking its competitors to tell anecdotes about when they've made fools of themselves - it's actually about comedians shoe-horning little bits of their routines on to the radio. In the hope of getting more broadcasting work.

The first series of this panel game went out late at night, but series two has won a place in the post-news chuckle slot. The premise is simple: host Charlie Brooker invites three panellists to share their experiences of life's low points (Modern Life Is Putrid is one discussion point) or dream up worst-case scenarios in topics ranging from soaps to boy bands, and off they go. It's pure Brooker territory, of course, but he's a master at highlighting the comedy of the dark side, and it's done in a warm, mutually-inclusive, sharing way that's curiously uplifting. And funny. This episode features Rufus Hound, Holly Walsh and Mark Watson and it's a cracker. The only downside is that you won't be able to see Hound's magnificently voluminous trousers.

Ron Hewit, Radio Times, 10th March 2011

The powers of Charlie Brooker's persuasiveness are showcased in all their splendour on So Wrong It's Right (Radio 4, Tuesday), the panel game that celebrates "the wrong side of life". This week, Brooker got Liza Tarbuck to admit to rigging up a homemade device and siphoning off petrol from her dad Jimmy's saloon ("He kept us on quite a tight leash, financially," was her defence). Richard Herring, meanwhile, confessed he once pooed his own pants - and seemed delighted to be telling all. In case you're worried, he was still at primary school at the time.

So Wrong It's Right is the radio show hosted by Charlie Brooker in which his guests must try to "out-wrong each other". In tonight's episode he is joined by Tom Basden, Josie Long and Lee Mack - and it's with Lee that things get a little... heated.

BBC Comedy Blog, 18th May 2010

Tuesday, Radio 4: Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker hosts comedy panel show So Wrong It's Right, with guests Victoria Coren, David Mitchell and Rufus Hound, signing off with his catchphrase, "go away!". Thursday, Channel 4: Brooker hosts comedy panel show You Have Been Watching, with guests Victoria Coren, David Mitchell and Andy Nyman, signing off with his catchphrase, etc. Shamefully, no explanation was given - although panel show fans are known to find change disturbing - for Hound's absence.

There's so much about the world that's rubbish, so many ways in which our species has made a complete mess of things, that misanthropy feels like a rational response to modern life.
A clear leader in the field is Charlie Brooker, who has distinguished himself in print and on television with his scabrous crescendos of disgust and contempt. It clears the passages to witness a heartfelt tirade against those deserving of our condemnation, and Brooker reliably hands out metaphorical kickings where they are most needed.

Written by Chris Maume. The Independent on Sunday, 16th May 2010

Charlie Brooker sets out to expose, wallow in, and reward failure. Panellists David Mitchell, Victoria Coren and Rufus Hound are invited to share their wretched holiday experiences and write the opening line for a sci-fi novel, among other things. Let us hope that no one from BBC3 was listening to their pitches for the worst reality show they can imagine: Mitchell's spin on Brewster's Millions, in which contestants must deliberately lose all their friends, sounds like it's got legs.

Charlie Brooker's show has been put in Radio 4's edgiest (11pm) slot, but it's savage misanthropy makes you do a double-take at the radio.

Written by Elisabeth Mahoney. The Guardian, 12th May 2010

Never a shrinking violet when it comes to offering up a strong opinion, Charlie Brooker is the perfect host for a series that celebrates abject failure. That could be reality television, going on holiday or the human race in general. Brooker's bite and bark are just as vicious as one another, so it's fortunate that he has three comedic guests to lessen the full-on savagery.